A Stranger Things fan is out $10,000 and a bit of romance after she was catfished by a fake Dacre Montgomery, the actor who stars as Billy Hargrove on the hit Netflix series. Appearing on the YouTube series Catfished, the woman, named McKayla, opened up about her experience, revealing that she divorced her husband and funded the catfish’s life for a full year before learning she wasn’t really dating the Netflix star.
According to McKayla, the fake romance began after she and the so-called Montgomery, who went by Dacre, first met on an online forum for creatives, which she joined with hopes to connect with other creative-minded people. Although the two immediately “hit it off,” McKayla admitted that she was “suspicious from the get go until he starts doing things that make me believe that he is who he is.”
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Among those things that made her confident she was actually speaking to the actor was the fact that he told her to watch Stranger Things Season 4, Episode 4, “Dear Billy,” the night before the episode hit Netflix. The episode saw the return of Montgomery’s character, with McKayla recalling, “He showed up in that episode. I was like, well, who else would know that?” However, the Catfish team later revealed that the secret was made public months before the season dropped. She also said the catfish sent her poems throughout their relationship that matched the writing style in Montgomery’s 2020 poetry collection, DKMH: Poems.
McKayla said she and the catfish further bonded over their respective partners and frustrations with their relationships. At the time, McKayla was estranged from her “toxic” ex-husband, and the catfish said he was preparing to split from his model girlfriend Liv Pollock due to her controlling behavior. She said she empathized with who she believed to be Montgomery “because my ex-husband was that way.” The catfish also allegedly told McKayla that Pollock had control of his bank accounts, something that prompted McKayla to fund his life for over a year.
“Dacre” eventually asked McKayla to be his girlfriend and requested her to keep their relationship a secret since “he” was still in a relationship. He also issued an ultimatum between him and her husband. McKayla said she told her now ex-husband, “Listen, it’s not working out. You’re not letting me be me, you’re not letting me be free, I said I need you to leave.” In addition to leaving her husband, McKayla said that over the course of their relationship, she sent the catfish about “10 thousand-ish dollars” in the form of gift cards and checks, despite the fact that Montgomery makes more than $100,000 per Stranger Things episode.
McKayla ultimately reached out to the Catfish team with her suspicions when cryptocurrency came into play. The team determined that McKayla fell for a “romance scammer” who allegedly exploited her and her vulnerabilities. The team was able to debunk the fake signatures he used on checks as well as the photo of lasagna he sent her, which he lifted from a Martha Stewart recipe.
Reflecting on the ordeal, McKayla said, “Love makes you do crazy, stupid, irrational things. I promise. And trauma does one heck of a thing to a person.” She also urged viewers to hold off on judging scamming victims, stating, “These scammers, they just kinda come in and they leech off that. It’s a dopamine fix every time you wake up, every time you go to bed. Several hours a day. It’s a fix, it’s a hit.” McKayla has since blocked “Dacre” and has taken a break from social media and the internet. She has also filed a police report.
